Gutter

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde

Pinky was late. It wasn't like her to be late. She was one of the few people it seemed these days who still relied on a watch to tell the time and not a glowing little screen. Besides, she didn't have a place to really charge said glowing little screen, and she didn't have the money to keep it turned on. Not many of us did. Every now and then, someone would get a free phone and service through some program, and it would usually end up stolen and therefore useless. So, there I was, peeping the time on the CNN building, waiting for Pinky while Boo paced and milked a cigarette. I always said she was too young to be smoking, but she didn't have much else to calm her nerves. I wanted to glance up at the clock again, and tried to stop myself. A watched pot never boils or something, right? Time seemed to not matter much on the streets while also mattering a little too much. It only took a second to lose everything. I gave in, and looked up at the clock.

Pinky was twenty minutes late now, and I wondered if she got caught up on the bus. I was trying to think of the simple, common ways that can delay a person before jumping straight into panic mode. Pinky could talk to anyone, and she often did, so I reassured Boo (and myself) that she probably got stuck in a conversation about past lives or something. She always wanted to know your story, and she was good at getting it out of you. I always wanted to forget where I came from, and her inquisitive nature wouldn't ever allow me to.

I didn’t grow up with much, so I had learned not to want more than I could carry. My Dad died when I was a kid, when I was just missing teeth, tangled hair and trying to save all the animals in our neighborhood. He’d done a stint in the Coast Guards, found jobs here and there after, and then fell over one day and died. Something fucked up in his brain, somewhere, and he just died. I never found a way to make it sound more poetic, to not be so blunt, but that’s the thing about death, it’s the end. It's over. They’re here, then they’re gone. Death is blunt, and it happens. I had to get over it quick, living in cheap apartments and then motels as my Mom tried to save up money to get us somewhere better. It never happened. Better isn’t easy to achieve. The American Dream is just something people talk about, but no one knows how to make it a reality anymore. The reality is that the American Dream is just a fairytale told to little white kids with trust funds to make them feel good about doing the bare minimum for their fellow human.

Our dream became a nightmare when my mom got sick, but we didn’t know what it was at first. She was tired all of the time, and our very basic state insurance just didn’t cover much. Her doctor wanted to dismiss it, prescribe pills, or push it off as something else. It took years for her to finally get to the specialists she needed. Multiple Sclerosis, some progressive form. She was deteriorating in front of me, and I didn’t know what to do. My older sister had worked her way into college and kind of left us in the dust. I’ve had a lot of hurt built up ever since, and the thought of her made me sick. I felt I couldn’t do enough for my Mom, that her worrying about taking care of me was making her worse. She had a hard time walking and yet insisted on keeping things clean and organized for me, and even when she fell she’d fight to get back up, too proud to ask for help. I took off and I didn’t look back.

I’ve spent two years already on the streets, and now I’m technically an adult. The shit I’ve been through made me an adult long ago though, fuck what numbers say. I’ve spent most of the last two years drifting around Southern California with people I’ve formed a new family with. Some of them aged out of the foster system, some of them escaped shitty families, some of them kicked out for who they wanted to climb into bed with, some lost their parents or caretakers and didn’t want to end up the in the system, some weren’t ready to share their stories completely. The ones who kept quiet risked their necks in one way or another for us, so they’d proved their loyalties.

We were in and out of shelters and group homes, finding sanctuary along the freeways, on the trash filled sandy beaches, and every once in a while in a strangers living room. Most people found us to be vermin, polluting their tourist dreams and ruining the backdrop of their photos at the Walk of Fame. People want to help when it gets them something, a pat on the back, some sort of public attention? Who the fuck knows, but when we were in front of their faces, asking for a couple bucks for a burger, they couldn’t be most disgusted by us. People have money to travel the world, but when the reality of the world is right in front of them, they close their wallets. They’d much rather donate as low as 33 cents a week to some bullshit company they found on TV or in a blinking online ad. They’d sure "feed the children" if it meant they didn’t have to smell them, see the blood and blisters on their feet or god forbid, graze one of their filthy, grubby fingers.

I snapped out of my forlorn daze and caught Boo getting a couple bucks from a passerby out of the corner of my eye. We'd had a lucky day so far, people were a little more giving and a lot less aggressive. Things lately had been the opposite, the pandemic made people even more afraid of other people, more out of touch with their humanity and far too self centered. For a second, some people got a glimpse of life for someone like me. Stuck, isolated, lonely and fearful for the future. As soon as it seemed to be over though, it was like they forgot it happened. We'd made enough though, on this rare day of kindness, to get a little bit of food and supplies for the night.

Finally, a faded pink blur caught my attention and I sighed in relief. Caticorner to us on the opposite street corner, Pinky waved her arms in excitement to see us and rushed over as soon as the street lights changed.

"You scared the shit out of us," Boo spoke up, playfully shoving at Pinky, which shifted her backpack off of her back.

"Sorry, sorry...but!" she dug around in her backpack and pulled out a brown bag, "That nice lady at La Brea Bagels gave me these for free! There's like...a whole dozen bagels in here," she beamed as she handed the bag over, proud of her bagel surprise. I took a big whiff and could smell the various flavors and freshness of each circle of dense, chewy dough.

Pinky shifted her bag back on her back and stood, pointing down the road. "I've got enough to get us a room for tonight, you down?"

"Fuck yes," I growled, almost feral. The thought of a shower and an actual bed were far too good to ever turn down. The manager of the West Inn was one of the few people in the entire county who always kept kindness on deck for us. As long as we could pay, he had space. He didn't mind we didn't have credit cards or anything like that, he knew we were quiet, cleaned up after ourselves and didn't cause any trouble. There were other kids we took in, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt...but they fucked around and got themselves banned from West Inn.

Pinky got us set up for a room, and grabbed the key, and as soon as we were in the room, we were washing out extra socks and underwear in the sink, placing them over the air conditioning vents to dry.

Boo gathered her things in a corner and looked back to us, "Should I go grab anyone else?"

Pinky thought for a second, "I think Cado is over at McDonalds, let me give them a call."

Pinky and Cado were a couple of those special souls with cell phones, but neither of them bothered with anything fancy. They both had flip phones and each others numbers on speed dial.

Cado was known as the Avocado Kid around Hollywood. They had an ever-growing Avocado plant in a pot they took with them everywhere. Somehow in the chaos of the Los Angeles county streets, Cado and their avocado plant and managed to survive. It wasn't quite a tree yet, it was really only a sapling, but it was something. Cado always said it was a reminder to themself that they could do something right if they put their mind to it. The quirkiness of Cado and their commitment to that plant made them a favorite to Hollywood tourists and people were often eager to feed them and give them money. Cado was also one of the kindest souls but often overlooked by their kindess on the late night streets and more than often, pushed around. So Cado was almost always under Pinky's wing, and in her mind always the most deserving aside from Boo and I.

Pinky nodded to me, "Cado is gonna hop a scooter and come down, they too could use a shower."

"Mind if I get Ruthie?" Boo asked, and Pinky shrugged and looked to me.

"I've got no problem with it," I also shrugged and Boo headed out the door to see if Ruthie was camping in her usual spot. Ruthie rounded out our main crew, and earned her nickname by being the most ruthless of our bunch. She was petite, but could hold her own like someone twice her side. She threw bunches with force behind them that made you question if she was superhuman or something. She always said she wasn't lucky enough for that though.

None of us used our real names because it was easier to detach ourselves from who we were before we were on the streets. We made new names, new identities, and started right there in the dirt. Sometimes it felt like we were all little weeds growing through a crack in the gutter, but I hoped to have as much perserverence as that someday Avocado tree that Cado took everywhere with them in their green plastic pot. I wanted nothing more than to take root somewhere, but for now, just a plant in the gutter with no real name praying the rainy days don't wash them away.

"Hope?" I heard, snapping out of my daze. "You gonna throw down?"

I laughed off my daze and nodded, apologizing and fishing out the coin purse I'd shoved what I had in, dumping it on one of the beds. "I feel like pizza would get us the most, and we can have it for breakfast too," I suggested as the group dinner.

"A couple of us can run over to CVS for supplies after we fill up," Pinky added. "Let whoever wants some rest first can take the beds."

It felt weird to have any control over our lives, but there, in the shelter of that small but perfect hotel room, we had a little slice of stability. We treasured making little routines and playing house because it felt like a calm in the chaos. Every night we could get decent sleep and security gave me a little more hope that maybe it didn't have to be a now and then, every once in a while sort of thing. Maybe that right there is why they nicknamed me Hopeful, the little spark in me kept igniting something in all of us. I had become embittered by the streets, sure, but that little tiny speck of light within me kept me from letting go completely.